Ezac!!!!!!

[Jon]

Re: Ezac!!!!!!

Dirty, what kind of test do you have on that line?

Dirty doesn't even have to chum the water. Very impressive.

[sshablak]

Re: Ezac!!!!!!

Are "Dirty" and "Red Cloud" the same person ? They sure post alike !!

[TimU]

Re: Ezac!!!!!!

I would argue the exact opposite. If anything ECAC this year has been a much deeper conference than most others in terms of competitiveness and depth, even if they are a step behind the other leagues this year. For example Clarkson in the last two weekends went from 5th to 3rd with 3 points over Cornell and Colgate, and then from 3rd to 6th with losses to Harvard and Dartmouth. 4th - 9th place was separated by 4 points. In Hockey East 4th-9th place was separated by 10.

As for how they fare against other leagues, it depends on the year. Last year they had a better out of conference record than Hockey East did, and yet they went 1-3 in the NCAA. This year they were clearly a step behind Hockey East, but have gone 3-1. You can take it any way you'd like, but the bottom line is ECAC is probably closer to the other leagues than most people would admit.

Agreed.

[bigblue_dl]

Re: Ezac!!!!!!

Are "Dirty" and "Red Cloud" the same person ? They sure post alike !!

Seriously?

[TimU]

Re: Ezac!!!!!!

That's not deep, that's parity within the league. Deep is how you do on a national scale. Like putting 3 teams in the Pairwise top 10.

It's both. I think the point was made to counter the argument that the ECAC has a couple of quality teams, and then there's a big dropoff. That's actually much more true for the WCHA, the CCHA, and Hockey East. Their top teams are consistently better than anybody in the ECAC, but the next tier of teams doesn't look much different than the middle-of-the-pack ECAC teams. There is more parity in the ECAC for sure. But I also think he's right that the gap between the ECAC and the top 3 conferences isn't as big as many people think. There are a lot of good teams in the league beating each other up throughout the season. Even the ECAC champions can't consistently keep up with the BCs of the world, but that doesn't mean that the league is made up of terrible teams.

[SlyFoxMan7]

Re: Ezac!!!!!!

I also hate to trot out this attitude, but there's definitely two tiers when it comes to ECAC Hockey. There are the top teams, who usually can play with anyone in the country (Cornell almost the entire Schafer Era, Union this year, Yale the past 3 years, whoever else has been at the top of the league previously) and then the rest of the league. It's just no a deep league. The top teams are always far an away better than the rest of the league, except the few years where the entire league sucks. Only one school consistently has any presence on the national scene.

This also applies to Hockey East. Take out Boston College and Boston University and Hockey East is not an impressive league. Maine had been good in the past and is okay now but nothing special. And then the lower tier teams of Hockey East are just plain bad.

[css228]

Re: Ezac!!!!!!

This also applies to Hockey East. Take out Boston College and Boston University and Hockey East is not an impressive league. Maine had been good in the past and is okay now but nothing special. And then the lower tier teams of Hockey East are just plain bad.

The difference is that they have more than two national tier programs at at time. I'm not expecting Brown to suddenly be more than one of the ten worst teams in the county, but I'd say that our middle is just far more mediocre than their's. ATM Cornell and Union can play with any team in the country. Cornell has been doing it pretty consistently for a decade now. But Q-Pac has been about to have a breakout season for a half a decade now, the North Country isn't as intimidating as it once was, and well Harvard hasn't won a tourney game since the mid 90s. If you looked at HE, I'm pretty sure 1 team wouldn't have nearly have of their tourney wins in the last decade. That, and that alone was my primary point. I'm glad that Union is picking up a lot of the slack right now though!

[SlyFoxMan7]

Re: Ezac!!!!!!

What's "almost" mean? Only one more semester of eligibility?

No, he still has a year of eligibility. I just meant that academically he's close to getting his diploma. So he can actually graduate soon and thus may not want to stick around for a full year when he has pro options.

[LTsatch]

Re: Ezac!!!!!!

The ECAC/Ivy teams also have a built in disadvantage in the number of games played compared to the non-Ivy's, they don't have the time or games to develop the SOS. I think the fact that Union got out west this year really helped them realize that they are on a level with the top western teams. Yale is heading to Denver and C.C. next season and will play BC away which I am glad to see. Another example of ECAC strength, Yale is a .500 team this year and split with Union beating them in their barn handily this year, they should have beaten BC at home this year as well until they blew the lead, of course being a young team they also lost to the worst ranked team in the nation. I think you will see Union Cornell, Havard Yale and possibly QPac make a good showing next year.

[cornellgradyalefan]

Re: Ezac!!!!!!

The other thing to keep in mind when comparing Hockey East vs ECAC, and I make that comparison because they are all eastern schools, is that Hockey East's profile has been elevated, while the overall strength of the league has been diluted, by the ascension of BC to elite status. BC is the most consistently dominant team in the East, and, arguably, the country. They have separated their program from all of the other programs in HE (BU,UNH, Maine) that were on that top tier with BC. The result is that HE is BC and a bunch of pretenders to the throne, whereas the ECAC has rotated teams (Cornell, Clarkson, Princeton, Yale, Union) at the top of the league over the last 5 years. Cornell is certainly the most consistently good team in the ECAC over the past ten or so years, but has never achieved dominance in the ECAC the way BC has in HE. BC's consistent excellence has given HE greater cachet than the performance of the entire league warrants.

[RENCEB]

Re: Ezac!!!!!!

haha. fair enough!

In Hockey East, we've seen/dealt with a suddenly appearing, oft-over-the-top, ballyhoo band of Merrimack fans who not only avoid the practice of: "act like you've been there before", but think everything they do should be heralded as the greatest thing since the wheel.

...although I am impressed with the use of "oft"

[MinnesotaNorthStar]

Re: Ezac!!!!!!

The ECAC/Ivy teams also have a built in disadvantage in the number of games played compared to the non-Ivy's, they don't have the time or games to develop the SOS. I think the fact that Union got out west this year really helped them realize that they are on a level with the top western teams. Yale is heading to Denver and C.C. next season and will play BC away which I am glad to see. Another example of ECAC strength, Yale is a .500 team this year and split with Union beating them in their barn handily this year, they should have beaten BC at home this year as well until they blew the lead, of course being a young team they also lost to the worst ranked team in the nation. I think you will see Union Cornell, Havard Yale and possibly QPac make a good showing next year.

First of all, nobody makes the ivies wait until almost November to start. Secondly, looking at Yale's non-conference schedule, they played 7 non-conference games. UND played....7 non-conference games. Non-conference games are huge in the PWR. So this argument is complete crap.

Also, if you blow a lead, you shouldn't have won the game. That's how hockey works. You score more goals in 3 periods, you win. It doesn't matter who leads the majority of the game.

[cornellgradyalefan]

Re: Ezac!!!!!!

First of all, nobody makes the ivies wait until almost November to start.

First of all, you're wrong. The people who make the Ivy hockey teams wait until the end of October to start are called the Ivy Presidents. They collectively made a decision to start the season later so that academics are prioritized over athletics.

Second of all, you're right. The number of non-conference games played by Yale and UND are equal and the quality of the opposition is not. But give Yale credit for going west to DU and CC next year as well as scheduling a home and home with BC. Yale needs to maintain that level of non-conference competition going forward. I would like to see them eliminate all of the softies from the schedule, but given the demand to play regional teams like Sacred Heart, that's probably not going to happen.

[LTsatch]

Re: Ezac!!!!!!

...although I am impressed with the use of "oft"

I am still waiting to use "Ne'er-do-well" aka "an idle worthless person" here, just biding my time! "Narcoleptic endomorph" is second on my list.

[MinnesotaNorthStar]

Re: Ezac!!!!!!

First of all, you're wrong. The people who make the Ivy hockey teams wait until the end of October to start are called the Ivy Presidents. They collectively made a decision to start the season later so that academics are prioritized over athletics.

Second of all, you're right. The number of non-conference games played by Yale and UND are equal and the quality of the opposition is not. But give Yale credit for going west to DU and CC next year as well as scheduling a home and home with BC. Yale needs to maintain that level of non-conference competition going forward. I would like to see them eliminate all of the softies from the schedule, but given the demand to play regional teams like Sacred Heart, that's probably not going to happen.

That was my point. The NCAA doesn't make them. They do it to themselves.

As to the quality of the opposition...that's on Yale for not scheduling that way. Though it looks like they're starting to do that with DU/CC/BC. That's going to be quite the non-con schedule. Good for them.